Worst Holiday Songs

Let's Be Honest - Lorde's Song Isn't The Only One That Deserves To Be Banned

Except for that fact that it’s clearly a highly successful publicity stunt, there’s a lot about the San Francisco radio ban of Lorde’s "Royals" that doesn’t quite add up. If you haven’t followed the story, in the wake of the San Francisco Giants being placed on a collision course with the Kansas City Royals in the World Series, KOIT Radio banned the megahit single from their airwaves.

No offense, Lorde, but for the duration of the World Series, KFOG Radio will be a "Royals"-free zone. We're sure... http://t.co/7uvseCjb03

— KFOGRadio (@KFOGRadio) October 17, 2014

Not to be outdone in their local-hardball-team-jingoism, rival Frisco station KFOG did the same.

But though Lorde did apparently get the idea for the song from a photograph of a Royals player, the song has nothing to do with baseball. And if it did, the lyrics could hardly be interpreted as an endorsement of the team. Check it out:

“And we'll never be Royals/It don't run in our blood”

But there’s a more serious issue here. Sure, Lorde’s mellow, overly-inflected form of sparse-bassed musical stylings can get irritating after repeated plays, but the hubbub over her ban is keeping us ignorant of a much graver problem. We’re talking, of course, about the impending onslaught of awful Christmas muzak that’s going to be taking over our airwaves.

Beginning as early as mid-November, we’ll be treated to an array of awful songs that have incomprehensibly become classics (“Merry Christmas (War is Over)”), albums and singles hastily pumped out by fading divas because they don’t have to pay royalties on the songs, country-Christian-Christmas-albums — and remakes of all the above. Given the option of listening to some of these for weeks on end, or instead duct taping a set of Sennheisers around our ears and attached to iPod shuffle with a playlist featuring exclusively Royals cranked to full blast, we’d choose the latter.

So if we’re going to get into the business of banning songs from radio, we humbly suggest it to you that we forget all about Lorde for the moment (until she too comes out with the inevitable Xmas album) and strike the following Yuletide crimes from the radio.

10. Paul McCartney, "Wonderful Christmastime"

The rancid turkey gizzard of Christmas radio, this tinny solo McCartney nugget strikes a tone that is so overly bright and repetitive that it can only be fake. Even for a notoriously twee lyricist, this feels like a tossed-off demo released with the only intent to siphon holiday-song-royalty-flavored gravy until the end of days. The soundtrack to the holidays in purgatory, surely. For more sinister use of the words "ding" and "dong," see our next entry.

9. Destiny's Child, "Opera of the Bells"

Proof that even the infallible Beyonce is sometimes very fallible, the frigid fiasco that is the 8 Days of Christmas album displays not one authentic Christmas sentiment in all its 12 songs. The weirdest is perhaps this Destiny's Child reinterpretation of the old Ukrainian "Carol of the Bells," which collapses under its own a cappella ambitions. Accumulating over more than four long minutes, the ladies' left-field stylings here have the uncanny effect of making the phrase “ding-dong, ding-dong” a chilling mantra, words that will pop up in your mind at the most inopportune times for days afterward. Truly one for the holiday slasher movie soundtracks.

8. Glee Cast, "Do You Hear What I Hear?"

No, we don't, and we won't leave this self-built igloo until you make this (un)holy racket stop. Just flash the Christmas lights five times in quick succession when you've put on the Phil Spector Christmas album — then I'll know the living room's safe again. PS: Did you know that this was written during the Cuban Missile Crisis? No wonder it sounds like it was conceived, performed and recorded in a high-tech nuclear fallout shelter.

7. 5oh!, "Home Alone (Christmas dubstep remix)"

Two words you really don't want to see together in a YouTube description: "dubstep" and "Christmas." Is there a term for that shivery feeling you get the moment you press “enter” on a combination query that you know can only yield terrifying results?The search bar shudder? The results page panic? A dark foregoogling?

6. The Chipmunks, "Sleigh Ride"

With the success of the recent Jason Lee/CGI movies, it appears we'll not be rid of these high-pitched vermin for a very long time. To be fair, "The Chipmunk Song" is relatively tame, even cute (also, three Grammys), but there's really no need for any more of their brand of brash chirpiness post-1958. Is it any wonder we found this abrasive version of "Sleigh Ride" on professional pervert John Waters' Christmas album? Other treasures found there: "Here Comes Fatty Claus" by Rudolph & The Gang, and the heartbreaking orphanage tale of "Little Mary Christmas" by Beach Boys songwriter Roger Christian.